The present Invention claims the priority of Japanese Patent Application Nos. 10-222302 filed Jul. 22, 1998 and 11-98763 filed Apr. 6, 1999 which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to environmental protection-type particulate detergent compositions comprising one or more detergent components selected from the group consisting of essential oils and essential oil components isolated or synthesized from said essential oils (hereinafter sometimes simply referred to as essential oil species), a surfactant and an enzyme, which are domestically useful as fabric detergents, tableware detergents, bath detergents especially for physically handicapped or senior people or for body care for women for cleaning off even the grime in pores, local skin-treating detergents for feet or the like, scale-removing detergents for removing scale on bathtubs made from any type of materials, detergents for the inside of bathwater boilers, mold-removing detergents, detergents for sanitary earthenware such as toilet bowls, and cleaners for drain pipes. They are also useful as exterior detergents for vehicles such as cars and trains or transport aircrafts such as airplanes, detergents for washing the exterior, floors, tiles, glasses or the like of buildings with water, detergents for tableware washers in restaurants or the like, detergents for washing kitchen apparatus, kitchenware, floors, gutters or the like with water, detergents for removing pesticides deposited on crops, and also industrially useful as refiners for vegetable fibers, wool or silk and raw skins or as deinking agents for paper pulp. In addition, they also serve as detergents capable of preventing drain pipes from being clogged with waste liquor discharged after the above types of cleaning.
As used herein, the term "particulate" means to include powder and sherbet.
Conventional detergents comprise a surfactant as a detergent component, In which are emulsified and dispersed polymers and fats deposited as soils and the emulsified and dispersed polymers and fats are separated from washes. Surfactant-based detergents containing an enzyme have also been manufactured and marketed. However, these products had important problems. Namely, the surfactant surrounds fats to prevent the enzyme from coming into contact with the fats, so that the ability of the enzyme to act on the fats to degrade them was significantly limited or lost by denaturation of protein. In relation to the recent burning issue of environmental protection, the use of detergents containing large amounts of surfactants means that the discharge thereof as domestic wastewater into rivers damages the environment by polluting rivers and seriously increases the load of clean water in water purification plants.
Especially, conventional surfactants were unfavorable from the viewpoint of environmental clarification because anionic surfactants inhibit enzymatic activity except for soaps and N-acylamino acid systems while cationic or zwitterionic surfactants are deposited on cell membranes of microorganisms and sometimes accompanied by other hazardous materials to kill aerobic microorganisms capable of cleaning the environment.
Recently, the presence of a disease called "chemical hypersensitivity" has been reported. This disease manifests itself to involve vegetative disorder, headache, melancholia, nausea, etc. when the total uptake of chemicals exceeds a certain level. Another disease called "sick house syndrome" has also been reported, which is caused by the interior air being contaminated with building materials or coatings in newly built or rebuilt houses. These diseases are caused by several tens of thousands or more types of chemicals produced.
Dirt on the skin or clothes include fats, sweat and dead keratin resulting from skin metabolism as well as minute chemicals contained in dust as described above, allergens and chemicals contained in skin detergents or rinses, hair-setting sprays, petroleum-based synthetic detergents for fabric or kitchen use and like daily products. These chemicals deposited on the skin are believed to cause atopic dermatitis. These minute chemicals penetrate into interstices between the epidermal keratin just before exfoliation and the underlying keratin to transcutaneously have an adverse influence on human bodies. Even those who have not developed atopic dermatitis or chemical hypersensitivity may show conditions thereof when the total uptake of chemicals exceeds a certain level.
Therefore, people of the present generation are required to remove these chemicals from the skin and clothes or to remove pesticides which have entered recesses on the surface of fruits or vegetables.
However, these chemicals which have entered into recesses can not be removed with surfactants alone. Petroleum surfactants used as kitchen detergents induce denaturation of protein to cause eczema in the people using them daily. Soaps consisting of fatty acid salts are not preferable for application to affected skin because of their alkalinity.
Conventional detergents for currently spread tableware washing machines employ strongly alkaline salts and chlorine bleaching agents to simultaneously attain solubilization of deposits and disinfection. Recently, strong alkalis have been replaced by weak alkalis for domestic use because they were frequently drunk by accident or caused hands to be rough. This led to the additional use of surfactants to supplement detergency. However, surfactants lather to adversely affect the environment so that less lathering surfactants have necessarily been chosen with low detergency causing hygienic problems such as insufficient cleaning or bacterial propagation. A solution was proposed to these problems by adding an enzyme or the like to supplement detergency. However, data show that enzymes are inhibited as evidenced by denaturation of protein with various types of surfactants derived from long-chain alkyl amines; polyoxyethylenes, hard alkylbenzene sulfonic acid salts, polyoxyethylene nonylphenyl ethers or the like derived from ethylene, propylene, butylene or the like; soft alkylbenzene sulfonic acid salts derived from gas oil or kerosine; olefin sulfonic acid salts or the like derived from heavy oil. Therefore, enzymatic degradation can not always be effective.
JPA No. 72398/92 discloses an advanced enzyme which is not inhibited by these surfactants. However, this disclosure can not satisfy detergency while solving environmental problems caused by discharge. This also applies to fabric detergents.
An object of the present invention is to solve said problems by maximizing enzymatic degradation effect while minimizing discharge of surfactants. We found that essential oils which have been known as perfumes and which are based on hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters or terpenoids and components thereof rapidly solubilize or disperse liquid or solid polymers and fats into emulsion, gel or cream, i.e. convert them into emulsion, dispersion, gel, sol, cream or solution. If an enzyme exists there, the enzyme can readily come into contact with the solubilized fats, proteins and starches to remarkably increase the working area and rapidly degrade the fats or the like.
It is known that the moving ability of water molecules is increased with small clusters forming assemblies of the water molecules. Thus, the use of water formed of small clusters for washes during cleaning activates the penetration of water to increase the opportunity for each detergent component to act on the washes. Clusters can be reduced by adding the following materials:
1) bicarbonates, hydrogentartrates, hydrogenphosphates or the like, which comes into contact with water to generate hydroxide groups; PA1 2) bicarbonates or the like, which generates carbon dioxide gas to agitate water, optionally in the presence of organic acids and salts thereof as foam-promoters; PA1 3) sodium percarbonate and sodium perborate, which similarly act by generating foams of oxygen for an extended period; PA1 4) sodium citrate, which similarly acts by binding to metal ions to soften water by chelating effect.
Alkaline materials such as carbonates, silicates and sulfates can be used to control the pH of enzymes within a range safe to humans from neutral to weakly alkali (which causes no denaturation of protein).
Experiments were made on degradation of fats by lipase in the existence of each of an aqueous sodium bicarbonate solution and an aqueous sodium carbonate solution in an amount equivalent to the fats. After the lapse of the same period past the addition of lipase, the degradation degrees were compared. In this case, the former showed degradation performance 10 times higher than that of the latter. Sodium bicarbonate is the best component as a particulate expanding agent and/or enzymatic activity promoter.
Essential oil species solubilized by surfactants in an environment of water formed of small clusters as described above rapidly penetrate into washes to efficiently dissolve fats so that enzymes contained therein move with water molecules to rapidly adsorb the washes and produce a sufficient amount of enzymatic activity.
As a result, the amount of surfactants used for dissolving fats deposited on washes can be remarkably reduced to attain a better detergent performance than obtained by such surfactants.
Thus, essential oils and essential oil components isolated or synthesized from said essential oils not only penetrate into and solubilize fats to enlarge the working area of fat-degrading enzymes but also disperse proteins and starches other than fats to increase the opportunity for the enzymes to act thereon up to 100%.
Detergent compositions of the present invention are defined as "environmental protection type" on the basis of the fact that any environmentally malignant surfactants are not used but environmentally friendly surfactants are used with minimum discharge and that essential oils and essential oil components isolated or synthesized from said essential oils evaporate after use to have no adverse effect on rivers or the like and are additionally capable of cleaning drain pipes with their active components after they are discharged as waste liquor. Moreover, detergent compositions of the present invention are harmless to humans and animals and environmentally friendly because they use naturally occurring materials or components synthesized therefrom. Thus, detergents of the present invention can be called green detergents.